by dan pine
staff writer
Having a wonderful life? Maybe it’s time to tell the grandchildren all about it.
It seems many people, often nudged by that welcoming letter from AARP, find they want to bequeath their collected wisdom to loved ones. Some write their memoirs, others compose an ethical will.
And still others look into the camera and wait for the word: “Action.”
For those wanting to tell their life story in living color, James Riseman would be happy to tell it, complete with special effects and background music. Riseman founded Storytailor, a San Francisco-based company that creates video biographies.
Riseman is like a personal Ken Burns-for-hire, compressing a life’s worth of history into a compelling 30-minute documentary.
He is riding the crest of a wave of interest in memoir writing, storytelling and personal biography. With self-publishing, home video and computer editing so prevalent, many find it irresistible to formally preserve their stories, or salute a beloved family member, with a product like Riseman’s.
One of three children raised in a Jewish family near Detroit, Riseman sees a Jewish angle to what he does.
“This is very Jewish in nature,” he says. “Jews are naturally self-reflective, and we have a lot of interest in ancestry. The Shoah Project is an example.
“Also, by creating these films we’re being good ancestors. In several films we’ve done, people want to convey their values.”
Storytailor (www.storytailor.com) starts its packages at $250, which buys a simple DVD slide show, and tops out at $6,500 for the full History Channel treatment with multiple filmed interviews, archival photos, home movies and maybe, if you want it, a car chase thrown in.
“We have discussions, we talk about the different chapters of someone’s life, and then we think about what would be most compelling. It’s never cookie-cutter,” Riseman says.
For those who want their life story bound the old-fashioned way, Joshua Brandt is the man to see. A journalist and frequent j. contributor, Brandt also started Moment in Time, his one-man shop in San Francisco. For a fee, Brandt will conduct all the interviews and set the story down on the printed page — leather-bound, if you’d like.
“I truly believe it’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from,” Brandt says. “We live in a very automated, computer-driven age where personal narratives are forgotten. When people talk about their histories, it’s extremely meaningful.”
Brandt started Moment in Time four years ago, and has since written scores of life stories. But for the most important one, he didn’t have to go far. Two years ago, he wrote a 250-page, illustrated biography of his father. “It represented a milestone in our relationship,” Brandt says.
Brandt, like Riseman, offers his services to anyone. But he admits his byline in j. hasn’t hurt when landing Jewish clients. “It helps me in that I, too, had a discovery process with my Jewish roots,” Brandt notes. “The process of discovering my history at a later age gave me insight into other people.”
Putting together a biography can burn up time on the clock. Brandt estimates
every hour of interviewing requires another 10 for transcription, writing and editing. But he doesn’t mind.
“Everyone should have access to their story,” he says. “I feel for people who, whether through adoption or brought here in chains, are cut off from their history. It can be emotionally disfiguring.
“You have to dutifully record their answers but arrange the narrative in such a way that it’s compelling. I ask the questions I think would produce a good read.”
Riseman has developed his own successful methods, including storyboarding every film, just like Spielberg or Scorsese would do (a storyboard is an illustrated version of a film, scene by scene, shot by shot).
“We consult with the family and come up with something that will work well with the film,” Riseman says. “We have them think about stories, come up with old photos, old documents, everything.”
Riseman and Brandt agree that their work is inherently rewarding.
“Part of being a journalist is that you like hearing people’s stories,” says Brandt. “To be paid for it is thrilling. How lucky am I?”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California